Alpine committee tightens hotel-occupancy tax application rules, sets March–April window

Alpine’s Hotel Occupancy Tax committee on Tuesday updated the program’s application requirements, scoring priorities and timeline for the coming fiscal year, directing staff to publish revised guidelines and to open grant applications on March 10 with a closing deadline of April 17 at 5 p.m.

The committee’s revisions emphasize two statutory limits and local priorities: at least 50% of hotel-occupancy-tax receipts must be spent on advertising and promotion, and no more than 15% of the year’s receipts may be used for promotion of the arts and for historical restoration and preservation. “The way that the law works is that two things have to be true for every expenditure: the expenditure directly benefits the hotel industry of Alpine, and it falls under one of these categories,” a staff member leading the discussion said.

Why it matters: The committee said the changes are intended to ensure limited hotel-occupancy-tax funds are awarded to events and programs that generate overnight lodging — the stated statutory purpose of the tax — and to tighten reporting so the city can verify that funded activities achieved that objective.

Key decisions and requirements

- Required attachments: The committee added a hard requirement that any organization that received hotel-occupancy-tax funding in the prior year must include a final report and, where available, photos with its new application. The committee indicated applicants who fail to submit required attachments may be ineligible for funding in the next cycle.

- Scoring and priorities: The committee reaffirmed that the primary scoring criterion is the estimated impact on overnight hotel stays. Applications are scored individually on multiple criteria (each reviewer assigns 1–10) and the committee uses a weighted average that gives greater weight to projected overnight stays.

- Application calendar and process: Staff will publish the revised application and open the portal on March 10. The application period will close April 17 at 5:00 p.m. — submissions must be received (stamped or in hand) by that deadline; emailed submissions are accepted but must be in staff inbox by 5:00 p.m. to be considered.

- Workshop and meetings: Staff will hold an applicant workshop on Tuesday, March 25, in the council chambers to review the application and answer questions. The committee will meet to score applications on May 15 and will reconvene the following week (May 22) as needed to finalize recommendations. Staff tentatively scheduled council consideration for the week of June 17.

- Fiscal-year and reimbursement rules: The committee reiterated that invoices and reimbursement requests must be submitted within the city’s fiscal year (Oct. 1–Sept. 30) and that the grants program cannot reimburse expenses outside that window. Staff explained the city estimates hotel-tax revenue from historical data, deducts set contracts and visitor-center costs, and allocates the remainder to grant awards subject to the statutory category caps.

Discussion and context

Committee members discussed tightening the reporting process (moving from a simple confirmation checkbox to requiring a submitted final report), offering a short template or sample report to help smaller or first-time applicants, and including guidance on collecting basic visitor data (for example, ZIP-code collection) to estimate out-of-area attendees. Several members urged that the committee be prepared to make funding conditional on timely reporting: if an applicant fails to submit a required final report, that applicant may be ineligible for subsequent funding.

The committee also discussed what kinds of advertising expenses are reimbursable (local versus nonlocal media), and staff said they will clarify in the guidelines how the program treats advertising in local outlets (the committee has in past limited reimbursement percentages for certain local publications). Committee members asked staff to add brief guidance or links to sample marketing-plan and budget templates in the grant guidelines.

State legislation

Staff told the committee that a House bill and a companion Senate bill have been filed proposing to change the 50% advertising requirement; Representative Eddie Morales’ office and Senator Blanco’s office have been contacted. Staff said the bills are in early stages and that city representatives expect to follow the legislation; the committee did not take an official position at the meeting.

Next steps

Staff will update the written guidelines and application form to reflect the committee’s edits (required attachments, clarified categories, scoring guidance), publish the application package on March 10, hold the March 25 workshop and return to the committee to score applications in mid-May. Staff will also reserve the council chamber for the workshop and confirm the final schedule publicly once documents are posted.

No formal roll-call vote was recorded during the meeting; the committee adopted the procedural changes by consensus and staff was directed to implement them.